Caught! We’re Going to Provide You with Logitech Harmony PS3 Blu-ray Control

Hello, I’m Troy Petersen. I’m a product marketing manager for gaming products, based in Logitech’s Fremont, Calif. office. I’m a huge sports nut and former sports journalist, and love playing golf (badly) and softball — though my new “hobby” of being a dad is my most rewarding activity. I’ve been with Logitech for more than six years and involved in tech for a decade.

Yesterday, an Engadget reporter did some digging on an FCC Web site and uncovered our plans to manufacture an adapter that allows our Harmony remotes to control the PS3. We can’t give you all the details just yet, but we can say that this adapter will, when used with any Harmony remote, allows you to control your movie-watching experience on PS3. It will also turn the PS3 on and off – and allow you to set up your Harmony activities to include the PS3 just as you would any other device. You also won’t need to dedicate any of your valuable USB ports to get that control.

We’ll have more information very soon, including pricing and availability. We hope you can wait just a little bit longer!

I already have the original BluTooth remote wich was $24.95, but I absolutely love your remotes (I have two of them, including an 880). Now, please price this item so I can kiss my actual PS3 remote goodbye! If it’s too expensive, I’ll keep it, since I already have it, but if the price is right, put my name on one as well!!!

Any chances to have a full remote with blutooth built-in as well? Nothing on the PS3, but everything inside the remote? I kind of like the fact that you don’t need line of sight with Blutooth! In fact, if built-in, it could also come with a IR-Blutooth transmitter so you could control many devices out of sight…

They already have the Logitech Harmony 890 which uses RF to control IR devices out of sight. It isn’t a new feature. I’m not sure why they don’t use bluetooth instead of RF, but I’d guess RF has better range and reliability. I’ve had to sync my 890 two or three times, and that is already too annoying.

This is great news! We just need a release date and a reasonable price! BTW, any chance there will be updates for the Logitech diNovo Mini to use/complement the PS3 and this device? Thanks and keep the good news coming!

As an owner of three Harmony Remotes (2 880s and a One) and two PS3s, I agree that this is something long overdue.

I was hoping Bluetooth would be included in the Harmony One. That would have really set it apart from the 880 and 890/1000 (other than the touch screen).

In terms of pricing, I fear Logitech will attempt to gouge us. The expectations have been set but those providing less than ideal solutions but almost all come in a less than $50.

For about $15 or less you can get a IR dongle that handles all but power functions.

For $25 or less you can get the official BT Remote from Sony.

How much more above that $25 would I be willing to pay for a single remote considering I’ve already made a substantial investment in Harmony remotes? Maybe $10 to 15 more than what Sony Charges for their remote.

I also fear that even with this solution, there will be latency issues since the signal needs to be translated from IR to BT then broadcast to the PS3.

How about building a Harmony One+ with IR/RF/BT all built in! A remote that intelligently knows the correct signal to send to each device for maximum performance.

I agree with the likely $60 pricepoint. Although it seems a bit high for what it does, these IR to BT converters are not cheap. In fact, going price for what’s out there now is between $90 and $150, so $60 would be well below market right now. Now I’m glad I picked up a cheapo Nyko Bluwave and waited for something like this to come along from LT. Can’t wait to pick one up.

60$?
Really…?
It cost me 20€ for the Sony remote…
And I would love to have only one remote to control everything, but 60$/€ for just a converter..
No way…That’s crazy!
I would pay 20-30€ at the most if someone would buy my old Sony remote…
It’s not that big of a deal to have two remotes..=)

And what is with Logitech and Bluetooth?
I love their products, but I would love to get rid of the dongle of my mouse and keyboard..
What’s wrong with bluetooth..? Why not use that since you don’t need those stupid dongles..?

I love my Harmony remote. Controls everything exactly as I need, except for the PS3 of course. I would love to control the PS3 with my Harmony. Heck, I would buy a new Harmony that included BT controls.

This device? I’m skeptical. I’ll watch for reviews – if there are any delays, it won’t matter what the cost is (I’m already not using the cheapo IR device I picked up for the PS3 because of this). If there are no signal delays, then price will be important.

No way is $60 the sweet spot. That’s how much my Harmony 659 was. The Sony BT remote is commonly $19.99 CDN at stores around here. If the cost is much more than the Sony remote, its value drops significantly. At the $60 mark, I would rather see a real remote with BT. Which really makes me wonder – is this the wrong product? Why not just make a better Harmony remote?

This sounds great, but please (if someone ever reads these) be careful about the pricing. Anything higher than 1.5x the price of the original Sony remote may be uncompetitive, as based on a quick poll around our office here – a load of PS3 owners here. It’s just having “only one” extra remote in addition to the Harmony, and one could always even use the Sixaxis.

I was thrilled when I read the message on engadget.com!!!
At the moment I am using the Nyko IR dongle incl. it’s limitations to control the PS3.
I never took the step to order one of those experimental home made devices which could power on / off the PS3, but I certainly trust Logitech on his products!

Can’t wait when this device becomes available in The Netherlands!
Any release dates / prices known?

I was going to comment on the poster (and eventually posters) that said $60 is a good price point, but others did. I’ll say it anyway, $60 is NOT a good price point and I wonder what those poster’s logic is behind it. $60 to control just one device? I too will spend the $20 on the Sony remote, or just continue using the SIXAXIS for free. If Logitech gets it done for $20 and no more than $25, then yeah, I’d be at BB picking one up. As stated, a $60 device to use one unit through an already $100+ remote (depending on the version) is just nuts.

Logitech, thank you for making a great (when it charges…yes, I still have that issue) remote, but please don’t sell this add-on for a retarded amount.

I think the device they are developping are going to make a whole lot of users happy, it will work with all remotres currently out there. Except for the PS3, is there anything else that is controlable through BT ? I rather buy this then pay for another 200$ remote.

I have an 890 (upgraded from a 550), and I would love the ability to fully control my PS3 using this device.

I can also state that I would have much rather had the Harmony One (much better button material and layout than the 890), but I was surprised that it didn’t have the RF ability.

I would really like the idea of a One+ that uses bluetooth to communicate to a next generation RF remote IR transmitter. That way the One+ could control a PS3 without anything extra AND a secondary remote IR transmitter device could be bought for remote installations. Another huge win for this would be if the Bluetooth protocol was open and you could write programs to communicate with the remote IR transmitter.

If this uses (or has the option to use) a different IR code set than the PS2, I’ll probably bite – that’s my biggest complaint with the IR2BT. I’ll finally get to take the tape off the IR receiver on my PS2.

Blame Sony for the incompatibility, not Logitech. Who the heck uses Bluetooth remote with a living-room device? My own theory is that Sony did it deliberately in order to placate manufacturers of dedicated Blu-ray players, who knew they’d be competing with low-ball pricing on the PS3 (given Sony’s death-struggle with Microsoft for the gaming business). Requiring consumers to shell out for a remote makes the PS3 just that little bit less of a threat as a movie player.

The IR2BT (http://www.ir2bt.com/) was a great solution. I’ve been using one for months, and it’s simply a no-brainer: cheaper than the Sony remote (originally, anyway), and opening the door to the total flexibility of the Harmony line. Works flawlessly, no latency problems at all, and doesn’t use up a USB. (Other than optionally to draw power, in lieu of eating batteries; I’ve got it plugged into the useless USB on my cable box.) Unfortunately, the original IR2BT is no longer available, replaced by a more-expensive device apparently targeted at up-scale home theater installations.

Of course, it’s great to see a Logitech branded product. The Harmony line is incomplete without PS3 support. But I have to hope Logitech has bought out the pioneering lone-wolf creator of the IR2BT rather than reinventing his solution. (Hopefully, this is the explanation for the phase-out of the original IR2BT.) This guy really picked up the ball and ran with it, and deserves all the success there is.

Thank god! I hate my nyko dongle. Now I will truly be able to control everything with my harmony 550, my dinovo mini, and mx air for mouse intensive activities. Keep up the good work and try to keep the price below 50 and preferably in the 30 dollar range.

Thank goodness!
This past weekend I decided to pony up and buy a PS3. We bought it, sicne we realized most BR players (which is what we were originally looking for) are the same price as a PS3. The bluetooth not meeting up with the IR of our Harmony remote cheesed us off (yeah, I really do use that expression) a little, and we’d try to cope. Thanks goodnees you guys are doing this!

I did not want to spend 24 bucks on a PS3 remote, since the idea behind our Harmony purchase was to *reduce* remotes in our house, not increase them!

Thanks guys, and hope to hear more about this soon…make sure to send an extra one up to Canada for us!

What a coincidence. only the other day I was only thinking of pleading with logitech to get something like this to market. Its grand for people that have a stand alone blu ray player but most people opted for the ps3. the lack of IR is a pain.
lets hope the price is right. €70 for the other adapter is steep!!!
Good job Logitech. put me down for one as well. This completes me.
Now I can get on with finding something to want.

I own an Harmony One and of course a PS3 so this is really good news for me as well, however I have one concern.

Will this device be powered by batteries or an AC adapter? I personally hope for batteries because this will save me from fitting another AC adapter + the cord trough my HiFi rack which is already pretty stuffed as it is.

A rechargable battery that could be recharged trough USB just like the PS3 controllers would be very nice in my oppinion and I doubt the device will use much power, so recharges shouldnt be nessecary that often anyway.

What about making a generic converter that you could plug in to your pc to control all kinds of bluetooth devices? There’s really no easy way to control the pc with the harmony one when there’s no IR-reciver available

I don’t own the PS3, but many know my name from the Logitech Harmony Remote Forums. In my opinion, it’s great to see a Logitech branded product that will give full control (including power on/off) unlike the Nyko adapter. For those that complained about the Nyko adapter meaning you added another remote to the setup, that’s not true (you would add the adapter to the PS3, but still use the harmony to send the IR signals). Anyway, the price point for this must be $40 or less. The reason I say that, unlike others who gave no reasons, is that the least expensive, reliable, full control adapter that this would be immediately competing with is the IR4PS3, which goes for $40 if my web search was right. That said, you might even be willing to pay a ‘tad’ bit more for the Logitech name. So, in my opinion, if this has an MSRP or $50 or so, it’s about right. I say that, but keep in mind that hardly nothing is in stores at the MSRP. For instance, the Harmony 1100 has an MSRP of $500 and is on amazon for under $390. In short, it has to be in the stores/online for $40 or less. Otherwise the IR4PS3 is still the better alternative.

This is the best news I’ve heard in like … some time!
I just bought me a PS3, mainly for watching blu-rays. I would really like to use the Harmony instead of the Sony retail remote. After some digging around I found some possibilities, but all pretty expensive, big and ugly.

You’ve asked for some time to release extra info, any indications how long? Maybe I should buy IR4PS3 just to bridge that gap… Keep us posted!

This is in reply to wannabe actuary… actually the ir4ps3 would be about $70, since 40 bucks is for just the base unit, which does not include the parts from the sony bluetooth remote. But, I agree I would be very happy to pay 40 dollars for this simple IR to bluetooth conversion device. I would be less happy to pay 50 dollars, but I would probably still pay for it.

How do I register to be notified when this will be available? Will you take pre-orders? If so how can I pre-order? I want to pre-order this together with a harmony remote asap! My wife has had enough of all our remotes and I need peace to be restored!!

The FCC filings ask that the photos of the unit and owner’s manual be kept confidential until June 15th, so that should give a good indication of minimum time frame we are going to have to wait. Not sure if they will announce it then or release it, but its a date that they asked for a reason.

This is great news, but the other question I have is, is logitech working on a new harmony remote that had bluetooth built into it already, so this adapter wouldnt be needed? So a remote with both IR and BT signals?? Can’t wait for this adapter, but if they were making a newer harmony remote with the BT builtin in already, i might consider skipping the adapter and getting a whole new harmony remote……

Are there any plans to also release a ps3 compatible harmony remote (with bt and IR) along with this adapter?
Even though I own both a ps3 and a xbox 360, I only use the ps3 to watch movies and listen to music, so that’s why I didn’t bought the 360 harmony remote. And since I don’t have a harmony, I would rather buy one that is compatible with the ps3 directly, instead of buying, say, a harmony 550 + this adapter…

I’ve been using Harmony Remotes with PS3′s for over a year now – works great (the IR to BT adapter that is, not the remote!). I chose the PS3IR-Pro from Schmart Stuff. It is a quality build.

I know Schmart Stuff is making a less expensive version of the one I bought. My experience with this device has been great. It has lived up to its reputation. It does one thing, and it does it well.

I use to own several Logitech remotes, keyboards and mice. Before I sent them for recycling, they sat in a couple of boxes marked “defective”. Warranties only last so long, and extended warranties (aka: no-lemon warranty) shouldn’t be required for “quality” products.

I would rather pay $80-$100 for a device that works well and goes un-noticed, than $40 for the same sort of device that fails – in warranty or otherwise, and that’s the mentality of my customers too. That doesn’t mean we want to pay through the nose needlessly, so a balance must be struck. Logitech would be wise to ensure they use quality components and good design, even if it raised the price a few tens of dollars. Demand a quality product, and avoid it if it’s cheaply made. A product like this should cost no less than $50.00 USD$ retail, due to it’s rather limited scope.

I paid $75 for my PS3IR-Pro. Was it worth it? Yes. Any regrets? No. It’s even flash upgradeable, so Schmart Stuff can issue a new firmware update if Sony decides to add a discrete “OFF” command to the PS3′s firmware.

I can see Logitech’s cheap device being popular, but I’ll never install one – I can’t afford to have my installations fail because a buck was saved in design and manufacturing. That is what put us in this mess in the first place.

When it comes to spending thousands of dollars on electronic equipment, what is $100? People waste more than that on “gourmet” interconnect wiring, Monster fibre-optic cable, and Harmony remotes.

While I am extremely happy about this solution, I would like to caution Logitech not to price this device too high, as this will only enrage it’s current users who have already spend good money on their remotes. I think $29.95 would be a good price point. Just a recommendation as a Logitech consumer who owns many of their products, including the Harmony 1 remote.

Great stuff if the price is right and all PS3 remote controls (I already have the original PS3 remote) are accessible. Will we be able to do a macro to automate changes in the configuration menus such as audio output from HDMI (LPCM) to Toslink (Dolby 5.1 bitstream) and reverse (so that I can switch from my 5.1 LPCM receiver/speakers to my new 5.1 gaming headsets? That would really sell it to me.
Thanks.

Will you guys hurry up and give us some more info on this thing? A tentative release date? An estimated price? I’d love to invest in a PS3, but the remote issue (I would probably use it mostly for BluRay) is holding me back! I already have a Harmony, just need a way to control a PS3! A month is not “a little while longer”!

I know that you are all eagerly awaiting more news about this product, but we just aren’t ready to release it yet. Remember that our hand was pushed a bit in revealing this because Engadget scooped us. We wouldn’t usually keep you hanging like this.

Many of you have asked to be put on a mailing list that would alert you once we release more information. Your best bet is to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or you can follow us on Twitter (@Logitech). Oh, and we’re also on Facebook (Official Logitech Gaming)!

Jeeze guys, quit giving them a hard time. Logitech produce superb pieces of kit, and each piece takes time and effort to make sure its spot on. Yes, we are all hungry for this adaptor to enable us to do away with that final remote and enter one-solution nirvana, but I’d rather have to wait and slaver over it for a few months and have it be freaking awesome then have it rushed to market and not be as good!

What a lot of speculation here! And who is silly enough to think that Logitech will take advice on pricing from this blog! Logitech gear normally rocks (except my Squeezebox Duet which drops off line from time to time – but thats probably my ADSL line partly to blame). I love the Harmony 1 and this will make the best remote in the world complete.

Oh well, I guess Logitech asked Best Buy to take it down, since it the link is not longer valid. I did look at estimated time before it would be available and it was 2nd – 3rd week of May (5/12 – 5/21).

Based what I saw on the BestBuy product page (before they removed it). Price will be $59.99 and it will be available sometime between 5/13 – 5/27 (although the availability dates were just Best Buy estimates)

The problem with the Nyko remote (which I already own), is that is does not support all the functions of the Sony PS3 Remote. However, it is a good inexpensive option if you just need/want the basic DVD remote controls and don’t care about the On/Off feature.

Although, I also think $60 is a little high, if you look at some of the other IR-to-Bluetooth adapters for the PS3 they have equivalent or higher costs. For me, I’ll spend the $60 so I can treat my PS3 just like any other component in my system. Although, this all would have been a whole lot simpler if Sony had just included an IR receiver on the PS3 in the first place.

I’d also like to know when the european release will be, specifically for the Netherlands. Admittedly, the pricetag of around $60 is a tad high, but It’ll be worth it to be able to complete my Harmony One’s “Play Game on PS3″ activity, including power on/off

Troy Peterson, you product is way over priced at the $60 price point! That’s 20% the cost of the product it controls. I am a Harmony remote owner and an “early adopter”, but no way would I pay over $20 for this device. Sony’s blue ray remote, which I bought for $20 brand new will do just fine!

To everyone else here, the name of the game for the marketing “geniuses” who set the price point on a new item is not only their cost of R&D, production, etc…but most importanly “what the market will bear”. Even though this item cost very little in terms of R&D and production, they assume some idiots will pay $60 for this using the price and demand curve. So they “test” the waters at this price and rake in the profits. After all the early adopters and other foolish people buy this at $60 and sales drop off the cliff, you will definitely see a substantial price reduction.

I hope Logitech will not ban this posting as it is not violating protocol for message boards.

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